CFL’s don’t work on a dimmer?
Not below a certain critical voltage - and using them on a dimmer shortens their lives anyway.
They work, but they don't dim. I've seen dimmable flourescents, but they're hard to find. LED lamps would be the right solution -- a chip could turn individual diodes on or off depending on the current -- but they're hell of expensive and not widely available. Yet.
Nope. I use CFL’s on all the ceiling lamps that don’t have dimmers, but have incandescent bulbs on the circuits with dimmers and all my table lamps—the latter for aesthetic reasons, or because I use them as reading lamps.
They’ll work for a few minutes, then burn out. Or they burn out your dimmer switch and perhaps the wall.
No they don't. I have carrier current control relays all over my house that allow remote control of lights and appliances by piping 100Khz digital signals pig-a-back on the 120 volt wiring. They use triacs to switch on the power and burn out CFL in very short order. My understanding is that early on, CFL were manufactured by a European company to high quality standards and they possessed about 10,000 hour life which was purchased by a $12 to $15 asking price. About a year ago I bought 28 CFL under a rebate plan from our local electric utility. Their retail price was $2.25 with a $2 rebate so I'm guessing that manufacture has been moved to China. I haven't bothered to count but I'd guess that less then a half dozen still work. These bulbs were sold as 10,000 hour bulbs, they were supposed to be the equivalent of 60 watt incandescent with 15 watts input. They aren't even close. They do not work when the ambient temperature drops below 30 degrees and I rather doubt they work at elevated temperatures as an oven light. In my opinion CFL's are not ready for prime time.
Regards,
GtG
No they don't.